5 nabbed in Parañaque shabu raid

Police raided a suspected shabu warehouse in Parañaque City last Sunday night and detained five Taiwanese nationals allegedly behind its operation.

Members of the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group-Region 3 (Central Luzon) swooped down on a warehouse at the Mayuga Compound in Baranagay Tambo at 10 p.m. following a tip from an informant that chemicals and equipment for making shabu were about to be delivered to several Central Luzon provinces from Parañaque.

Raiders dug up 100 bottles of pyridine, 96 bottles of thionyl chloride, four bottles of methanol and four bottles of chloroform buried in a three-by-three meter pit at the facility, which they said was fronting as a prawn warehouse.

CIDG-Central Luzon chief Senior Superintendent Zoilo Lachica, CIDG-Region 3 chief, identified those arrested as Chung Hao Chai, 46; Wu Sheng Chin, 43; Wang Chih Chung, 31; Chen Yin Lu, 54 and Harry Fe, 36.

"We received information that equipment and chemicals for making shabu were being stored at the warehouse and that the suspects were just waiting for their to their contacts in Bulacan and Nueva Ecija," Lachica said.

Police said they have yet to question Chai, who claims he does not speak or understand Pilipino or English.

The suspect has been renting the warehouse at the Mayuga Compound, located on Pilderas street in Barangay Tambo.

CIDG and crime laboratory officers also dug up from the ground a machine used for drying finished shabu.

Four containers of liquid meth, three freezers and four vehicles were also seized.

The raid was conducted on the strength of a search warrant issued by Judge Aida Estrella Macapagal of the Parañaque City Regional Trial Court.